‘Survivor,’ ‘Big Brother,’ ‘Talent’ in Wednesday Ratings Tussle

Reality shows dominate primetime viewing Wednesday

Reality shows dominated primetime viewing Wednesday, as the season finales of CBS’ “Big Brother” and NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and the season premiere of “Survivor” drew nearly identical numbers among adults 18-49.

CBS won the night in the demo, according to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, behind the 90-minute “Survivor” premiere (2.6 rating/8 share in 18-49, 9.5 million viewers overall) and the “Big Brother” denouement (2.4/7, 6.7 million), though NBC finished first in total viewers.

Thanks to “The X-Factor” (2.2/7, 6.6 million), Fox sneaked in to finish second in 18-49 ahead of NBC, which had “Talent” (2.5/7, 11.3 million) from 9-11 p.m. but was weighed down by “Million Second Quiz” (1.2/4, 4.9 million) at 8 p.m. “Talent” showed slight week-to-week improvement as well as year-to-year compared with last September’s season finale.

Trailing were the two networks still showing repeats from 2012-13: ABC, which was topped by its second “Modern Family” of the night at 9:30 p.m. (1.5/4, 4.1 million), and the CW, led by “Supernatural” at 9 p.m. (0.4/1, 1.1 million).

Head-to-head, CBS eked out victory in the timeslot battles from 8 p.m. through 10 p.m., while NBC had the edge in the final hour of primetime.